polis - Centre for Citizenship Education in Schools

polis – The Austrian Centre for Citizenship Education in Schools supports teachers in putting citizenship education into practice. It works under contract to the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education/Department for Citizenship Education. The Centre provides teaching materials, acts as information and consultation platform, offers formation and continuing education for teachers, as well as workshops for students. Apart from knowledge transfer activities, the Centre also engages in awareness-raising and sensitisation for all issues concerning politics, democracy, human rights, consumer education and the strengthening of social skills.

The Austrian Centre for Citizenship Education in Schools wishes all headmasters, teachers and students a pleasant start to the new school year! In the german version you will find some information, which can be helpful for autumn planning.

European policies is an essential part of citizenship education. The discussion with European questions and topics, is part of the educational principle "Citizenship Education as a Cross-curricular" as well as the curricula for History and Social Studies / Citizenship Education Sec I and Sec II.
The network has set itself the task of strengthening the value of European Citizenship Education in schools. Synergies should be used to integrate the topic of Europe well into the classroom.

On the occasion of the "Citizenship Days" campaign, a free workshop on the topic "Discrimination and Racism in the Net and how to deal with it: The No Hate Speech Movement" was raffled by the Austrian Centre for Citizenship Education in Schools.

Between 23 April (World Book Day) and 9 May (Europe Day) the main event series on Citizenship Education in Austria invites this year already for the 15th time with more than 200 activities to participate. The Citizenship Days are an annual nationwide campaign, initiated by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education and coordinated by polis – The Austrian Centre for Citizenship Education in Schools which is located at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights. The campaign aims to raise and strengthen public awareness of Citizenship Education and Human Rights Education.

On 20 November 1989, the United Nations adopted the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). 27 years later, the respect for and fulfillment of children´s rights are by no means self-evident. Violations of children’s rights do also occur in Austria. As long as children are victims of violence, as they do not share equal opportunities in the educational system and the rights of children who are refugees differ from the standards for „Austrian“ children, there is still a substantial need for action.

Hate speech has become one of the most common forms of intolerance and xenophobia in Europe today. The Council of Europe has been a pioneer in defining hate speech and in calling for the condemnation of racism and xenophobia on the Internet. The manual Bookmarks is a precious tool to stop hate speech and strengthen human rights, thus it was also translated in german.

The policy lexicon for young people has been extended through definitions of the Easy Reading Dictionary regarding "Monitoring Committee for the Implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of to persons with disabilities" with explanations in easy to understand language from the lexicon of RECHTleicht.at.